The torture policy was Cheney's baby, not the military's.

[seemslikeadream]

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/the-military-resisted.html#more

The torture policy was Cheney's baby, not the military's. They resisted, as my email in-tray over the years is testimony to. Cheney himself told us when he warned us of his walking over to the "dark side" what he was going to do, and a pliant, ignorant, overwhelmed president with a sadistic streak was powerless to resist, even if one clings to the hope he might have wanted to. Why torture for Cheney? I cannot know for sure, but suspect it was a way to gain some personal traction against an amorphous enemy that had no territory to defend and no army to destroy; it was a means of feeling in control; it was a way to reverse what Cheney believed was the neutering of the post-Watergate presidency; it was revenge; and it was secret, allowing Cheney and his small circle total control over the bodies of individuals they wanted to penetrate and destroy.



http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/were-an-empire-now-and-when-we-act-we-create-our-own-reality.html#more
The more you think about the role torture played in constructing a false premise for a war where more torture would be unleashed, the more terrifying and dark this chapter in American history becomes

[enough]

1. That first paragraph very well explains the intersection of the psychological and the political

in Cheney, Bush, and others (many others).

[Captain Hilts]

2. Most people here knee-jerk and blame the military folks. nt

[H2O Man]

3. Absolutely.

Nominated.

[seemslikeadream]

4. How are you feeling today Mr. Cheney?

[EFerrari]

5. Someone clue Andrew into the Cheney/Rumsfeld junta. n/t

[Psychic Consortium]

6. You have hit the nail on the head. Excellent work here.

K and N.

[Psychic Consortium]

7. Could Cheney's torture policy be a reason for the high rates of US military suicide?

And are some of them not suicide?